


Chiaroscuro

by sabrecmc



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Time Travel, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, Winter Soldier POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-10-28 14:07:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10832841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabrecmc/pseuds/sabrecmc
Summary: The bridge wasn't the first time the Winter Soldier failed to kill Steve Rogers.





	Chiaroscuro

**Author's Note:**

  * For [70SecretKinks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/70SecretKinks/gifts).



The paints. 

That was what stopped him. 

Not _those_ paints.  Not exactly.  The ones that had been in a scuffed-up tin box that said Reeves and Sons on top and were currently flipped open on the floor where the small tubs of paint scattered like colored stones.  The paints that flashed through his head were different.  Brighter.  The small palettes of color still smooth and unused. The brushes dry, their bristles crisp and straight, not bent and twisted like the brushes that fanned out on the floor. 

He could smell them. The paints.  Faint, but noticeable in the cramped room.  He had closed the single, narrow window when he entered, and the air was still, making the paint smell fill his nostrils, even through the mask.  

Linseed oil, his mind supplied, though he was not aware of where that knowledge came from.  He frowned.  The paints.  Looking at them left an unsettled feeling bubbling low in his gut, like he was walking into a trap, though no reason for the feeling followed.  Just the same hollow nothingness as always, except now, it felt like there _should_ be something there, something he could almost catch, if he looked out of the corner of his eye.  A line, extending from a point, but never quite reaching the other end, but he knew it was out there. 

That was…different, he decided, trying out the word.  Yes.  Different.  An anomaly. A variation.  

Different was dangerous.

Focus. The mission.  That was what mattered.  The paints, whatever their association, were a distraction.  Nothing more.  Certainly, nothing significant.  He would note it in the mission report.  It would be handled.   He looked down at the paints again.  Frowned.  They were wrong. The paints. He didn’t like them.  More than that.  They were dangerous.  Somehow.  Somehow that he couldn’t fathom, the paints were dangerous.  The target shouldn’t have them.  There had been nothing in the dossier about paints.  A discrepancy, then. Sloppy work.  Nothing to be concerned about.

Because they are irrelevant, a thickly accented voice that wasn’t his own echoed in his head.   The paints are irrelevant.  Complete the mission.  Now.  While the stranger is unconscious. 

He moved, one silent step and then another.  The toe of his boot hit one of the small, white pots of paint with a faint clink where it tipped against the wood floor.  The target should not have had the paints.   

_Just…promise me, okay?_

He stopped.  The words flickered across his mind, burning bright for one clear instant, then gone, everything dark again.  They meant nothing to him.  But, they were…urgent.  Insistent in a way his thoughts, the strings of garbled, gray words that sometimes passed across the distant recesses of his mind, usually weren’t.

A groan.  The big one, the stranger, the one who shouldn’t be here, was stirring. 

The target wasn’t moving.  Not dead, though.  Not yet.  Breathing.  He could hear it. There was a wrongness to the breathing.  Not a choking-gasping wrongness. Something else.  It…disturbed him, though he could not say why.  It made him think of the canaries one of the scientists kept in his office, always flying around in their cage, making it swing on its hook, rattling the tiny door.

Four, and he had be at the rendezvous point.  The monk with the glowing necklace had been very clear on that. The timing. 

The time. 

Very clear.

There had been three whistles while he waited for the target to arrive.  Three, and then some time passed. 

Four.  Four whistles.  When there are four whistles, you must be there. No later.

“Ste—Steve,” the stranger stammered, then spat a thick glob of blood onto the floor and wiped his mouth with the back of his jacket sleeve. 

The stranger’s line of sight caught on the booted foot next to the paint and followed it up, eyes going wide, then narrowing to a something else, something knowing.  Worried.  But, not panicking.  Not yet.  That was good.  Panic could be loud.  Loud could be messy.  He had very strict orders.  Just the target.  The stranger reached out for the smaller man, crumpled in a heap next to him.  Placed a hand on the other man’s back, as if to offer some kind of protection.  Pointless. 

“What the hell?  Who the fuck are you supposed to be?” the stranger demanded.

The Soldier did not answer.  There was no reason to.

“You one of Costello’s?” the man asked, spitting out the last word like it tasted bad on his tongue.  The name was unfamiliar.  It didn’t matter, though, so he ignored the question again.  “He got you guys wearing, what?  Gas masks now, that it?  Supposed to scare us regular folk?” 

The man shifted, uncomfortable, either with the Soldier’s silence or his injuries.  Perhaps both.  The floorboards groaned at the movement.  The row house was old.  Haphazardly divided into tiny apartments shoved too close together with far too many people.  Too much noise and someone would come.  There would be… complications.  Mission protocols were already breached.

Mr. O’Rourke would hear. 

The Soldier frowned.  Blinked.   There had not been any information on an O’Rourke in the dossier.  His hand flexed and formed a tight fist.  He could feel the metal joints moving under the black glove, which softened the clinking sound to almost nothing.  The downstairs neighbors were a dock worker and his wife, who worked in a garment factory.  Next door, a delivery driver, who would be picking up his wares for the evening route. No one should be home now.

He has the game on the wireless now.  Mr. O’Rourke.  But, he could turn it off if the Dodgers get behind again.  He might hear something.  Bang on the ceiling with his cane. Shout at them to be quiet up there.

That was…the thought had no place, no point of reference, and yet it stuck.  He was sure of it.  He could almost hear the muffled, scratchy voice that had a lilt in it, like music crammed together, coming through the air between the floorboards and the ceiling below.  The Soldier cocked his head.  Listened.  He could hear it. The low hum of the wireless that rose and fell with each pitch. Faint.  Barely there.  But, he could hear it. 

The wife. It’s her father.  He came to live with them.  One more mouth to feed.  Drives Francis crazy, but what can he do?  Can’t put her Da out on the streets, could he?

No, he couldn’t.

The Soldier couldn’t swallow.  He didn’t know any of that, except he did, and it was suddenly horrible, this unwanted knowledge, this seedy certainty, this _variation_ that slithered in and coiled around his mind.  He needed to finish this and leave.  Get back.  They would fix this.  Fix him.  He wouldn’t know this anymore and it would be easier, the blankness, if it was truly blank, he knew. 

Prep him.  Wipe him.

What did I know?  Nothing.  A discrepancy.  An anomaly. 

The _paints_.

Irrelevant.  They would be gone soon.  He would tell his handler.  In the mission report.  They would take them away.

_You get rid of those._

His heart was pounding. It sounded loud in his ears. Too loud.  And fast.  He swallowed.  It tasted metallic.  The paint smell, he told himself. It wasn’t.  He had bitten his tongue. 

An anomaly.

Focus.  The target. The stranger.  The mission.  That was all that mattered.   The paints would be gone.  He wouldn’t know them anymore.  Everything would be blank again, dark and cold and clear.  Like snow.  He frowned again.  It was an odd thought.  Unnerving in some strange way.

“Look, if you’re after money, you came to the wrong place.  I got a bit a’scratch in my wallet.  All yours. Here. Take it,” the stranger offered.  The Soldier looked down.  Focused.  He had his mission.  That was all there was.

The man reached inside his jacket and pulled out a brown leather wallet, holding it out in the air in front of him.  His hand was shaking.  Not much.  Just a bit.  The Soldier noticed, though.  He was used to looking for the signs.  Sometimes, people had to be convinced to talk.  You had to find weak points.  Everyone had them.  You just had to know where to look.  

His eyes caught on the paint set again.

“You—you take it, okay? Take it and just…just go, alright?  There’s nothing else here for you. We don’t have anything,” the man said. It came out like an entreaty.  The man looked over at the crumpled form next to him again.  “Just go. Please.  There’s nothing here.”

The man dropped his gaze though, just for a moment, and the Soldier saw something pass over his face.  Calculating.  Cold.  The stranger knew that this was no robbery.  A ploy, then.  The stranger had moved again, the Soldier realized.  Closer to the target.  Just a little.  Barely noticeable.  Meant to go unnoticed, but he had the Soldier’s attention now.  The paint smell faded.  Not entirely.  But, some.

The Soldier cocked his head, listening for the wireless.  Yes. There it was.  Bottom of the eighth.   Hassett was at bat. He would have to silence this one.  Quickly.  Before the man did something stupid.  Something loud.  Loud could lead to messy.  Mission protocols had already been breached.  He could not afford to allow it to be further compromised.  This one was dangerous.  This man, who wasn’t supposed to be here. 

Why ya got it all dark in here?  You doin’ somethin’ ya shouldn’t be doin’, Stevie? 

That was what the man entered the room with, tugging a hand off his head and tucking it beneath one arm as he stepped inside, smoothing his hair back with one hand in a practiced gesture.  There wasn’t much light reached inside the apartment.  Not here, beneath the sloping overhang of the roof on the back side of a crumbling brick façade where wooden stairs clung the building like vines creeping up the side.   Not _much_ light.  But enough.  Enough to see the Soldier with his hand around the target’s throat while a thin hand scabbered wildy in an ineffectual attempt to peel the black-gloved hand off and find air, and something smashed into the side of the Soldier’s face.  Something made of a light metal. Something that made a hollow clinking sound when it hit, though it did no damage save the dull echo of the sound that punctuated the silence.  The stranger had lowered his shoulders and rushed at him, aiming for the Soldier’s midsection.  A bull rush.  All panic and rage.  It lacked finesse.  The Soldier knocked him out with one blow. 

That should have been the end of it.

But, the _paints_.

Steve Rogers.  166 Montague Street.  Second floor.  On the end.  A few blocks off Flatbush Avenue.  Target will be alone.  Terminate target.  Do not be seen.  Absolutely no collateral damage.  That last part was imperative.  His handler had been very clear. 

Except for it’s odd beginning when the Soldier watched his handler’s face disappear while the monk waved his hands in some kind of a pattern and a hole in the world opened up in front of him, the mission had been largely unremarkable until the stranger showed up, opening the apartment’s door with a key he shouldn’t have had. 

The stranger moved again.  Just slightly.  Shifting his weight and getting his leg out from the odd angle where it curled under him. The floorboard creaked.  Louder this time.  Then again.  The Soldier had the odd thought that the man was doing it on purpose. That he knew where to move and where not to move to make the building talk.

“Quiet,” the Soldier ground out word through his teeth.  It echoed in the mask, low and hissing.

He saw his mistake almost immediately. 

The man opened his mouth, some shout for help forming like a bubble at his lips, almost something the Soldier could see.  The Soldier took two steps forward.  Not towards the man. That was pointless.  He would shout.  Mr. O’Rourke would hear.  Turn down the wireless.  Maybe bang on the ceiling.  Maybe come upstairs.  Loud.  Messy.  No, the Soldier didn’t move towards the stranger.  He went for the prone figure on the floor. 

The stranger clamped his mouth shut. 

Good.

Everyone has a weakness. 

The Soldier toed a booted foot at one of the small tubs of paint that had fallen out of the box, and sent it skittering a few inches across the floor towards the others, then looked over at the man.

_You stay away from him, you hear me, Stevie?_

The words rang in his head.  Like bells, he thought, and could almost hear them.  So clear and close, the Soldier stopped and listened.  Below, someone made it to second.  He had the absurd thought that something about that was funny, though the thought refused to settle and take hold before it was gone. The crowd cheered in the background of the wireless, a low, roaring din that sounded nothing like bells.

“What do you want?” the man who wasn’t supposed to be here asked, lower and quieter this time.   Wary.  That was good.  Hard, though.  That wasn’t as good.  It meant adrenaline.  It meant muscles clenching, teeth grinding together.  Readiness.  The Soldier looked down at the target, then over at the stranger.  “That ain’t happenin’,” the man said.  Calm. Sure. Too sure. 

The target stirred.  Gave a thick, watery sounding gurgle.  Even behind his goggles, the Soldier could see the change in eye movement, the tick of the pulse leap against the pale, thin skin of the target’s neck.  The target should be dead by now.  He would be dead soon.  It could have been done earlier, when the target was squirming, trying to land a kick, but held too far off the floor to gain purchase, blue eyes wide and dazed from his head smacking against the plaster wall next to the small table.  He could have done it then.  One twist of his hand, a snap, and it would have been over.  Simple.  But, then the stranger came and the target dropped the paints.  He could almost hear the clatter against the floor as the metal box hit and spilled its contents.  He had stopped.  Because of the stranger.  That had to be dealt with.

The paints were everywhere. 

The paints were _wrong_.

The paints were irrelevant (a variation).  

The stranger was irrelevant.  He could snap the target’s neck in the span of a heartbeat.  He could walk over and do it now.  Knock the stranger out again, complete the mission.  A few steps was all that separated them.  The Soldier looked down at the floor where the trays of paint littered the ground.  The pale, fleshy peach was the most used.  Its tub was almost empty.

Irrelevant.

The target was moving.  Sluggishly, for a moment, then a sudden, jerking cough wracked his body, and he made a desperate sort of sucking, wheezing sound that was almost silent.  It made the Soldier think of a fish tossed up on land, it’s mouth opening and closing around air it couldn’t have.  The target gasped again, his fist going to the center of his chest with a thump.  Then another thump, hollow and brittle sounding.

The stranger moved, reached a hand out towards the target.  Automatic.  There was no thought to the motion.  He hesitated when he realized and looked up, hand hovering in the air over the smaller man as he curled into a rictus of agony, coughing in great, heavy bursts punctuated, strangely, by the occasional sneeze.  The Soldier nodded, once, and the stranger’s hand fell on the target’s back, between his shoulder blades, where they jutted out like sharp wings from his back.   Lull them into complacency.  Knock out the stranger.  Kill the target.  Be done by four.  No later than four. 

The Soldier looked down.  His hand was out, black fist splayed wide, reaching. 

Odd.

He frowned.  Pulled it back to his side. 

“Breathe, Stevie.  Come on.  Slow down, slow down, just breathe for me, okay?  One thing at a time,” the stranger crooned, gentle and easy.  The words had the feel of some kind of script that had been said before.  “He’s—it’s his asthma, there’s—can I—there’s medicine—“ the stranger said, looking up at him.  The Soldier looked over at a drawer under the cabinet in the kitchen, next to the white porcelain sink with the cracks spiderwebbing through it.  “—in the drawer, there.  He—just breathe, Stevie, okay?  It’s gonna be okay, just try to breathe--He needs it, please.  Can I—“ the stranger stumbled over his words, hand stroking up and down the target’s back where it spasmed, shaking the frail body like a ragdoll. 

Devil Piss, the Soldier thought, though he had no reference for the words.  Lull them.  Let them grow comfortable.  Believe they had a chance.  The stranger could cause trouble.  Draw a crowd.  Raise an alarm. 

We need to be quiet. Mr. O’Rourke might hear.  That was true, though, there was a clandestine thrill to the words that seemed misplaced. 

The Soldier nodded slowly at the man, then watched him scramble up and over to the drawer, pulling it out had enough to make the cups and plates on the shelf above jump and shake.   On the floor, the target wheezed again, a crackling sound like boots crunching into soft snow.  A shiver or wrongness snaked up the Soldier’s spine, and he frowned again, deeper this time. 

To his left, the Soldier heard the man slide the drawer closed with a rattle and walk the few steps back over to kneel down next to the target.  Quietly, the Soldier noticed.  No squeaking floorboards.  He was holding some kind of glass tube connected to a large, black bulb in one hand and a small box of what was clearly medicine of some kind in the other.  The Soldier watched, almost eerily fascinated, as the stranger added three drops of solution from a dropper into the glass, pulled out the rubber stopper and shoved the tube into the target’s throat, squeezing once, then again. 

“Breathe in, Steve, come on, help me out,” the man urged. 

The Soldier looked down at the red box, almost the size of a shoebox, laying on the floor by the man’s shoe.  Devilbiss Glass Nebulizer No. 44, it read in blocky letters across the front.

It would taste bitter.   Medicinal.  Vaguely metallic.  He didn’t know where the knowledge came from.  There was no memory of learning it, but it was wrapped in something pleasant.  A fondness that shouldn’t be associated with something like that, but the feeling sat there, in the back of his mind and waited, expectant, like he was a moment away from grasping it’s meaning.  Nothing came of it, of course.  Nothing ever did.  

“Come on, breath for me,” the stranger was saying, more insistently, giving the target’s bony shouder a small shake.  “You always gotta be so dramatic.  Can’t leave you alone for a minute.”

“Got,” the target began in a scratchy, scraping voice.  He sucking in a breath and swallowed loudly enough for the Soldier to hear the man’s throat click, before looking up at the Soldier with wide, watery eyes.  “Strangled.”

“See?  Dramatic,” the stranger repeated, though there was a softness to the accusation that made it sound like something else entirely.  “Like with those mooks behind the St. George, remember that?”

“Yeah, I ‘member,” the target croaked, pulling the glass tube away from his face and looking up at the Soldier.  “Think you…you got the wrong guy, maybe.”  The target was watching him, face pale and drawn, like all the color had been drained out from the effort to breathe.   Perhaps it had.  It was irrelevant.  “Maybe…maybe you were looking for someone else.  Wrong address, I don’t know. A mistake, probably.  Probably you were after a different guy.  Whatever this is, I’m not—I’m no one someone would care enough about to want dead.”

It wasn’t a plea, not exactly.  They did that, sometimes, when they had the chance.  Begged.  Pleaded.  Cajoled.  Sometimes, they offered him things.  Money.  A bargain.  Offered him them.  This one…this one just suggested he might have made a mistake.  He would tell his handler.  The handler would laugh, low and snickering, the way he did sometimes when he had the Soldier recite the details of his mission.  His handler would like that detail.   His handler liked details.

_Did he say anything?_

_A name._

_What name?_

_Sergeant Barnes._

_Does that mean anything to you?_

_No._

It was different, the target’s suggestion. His handler would want to hear it.   A new thought, one the Soldier hadn’t had before, not that he could remember, at least, flitted across his head like the tail of a kite string that he couldn’t quite catch. 

Maybe he wouldn’t tell his handler. 

The paints were irrelevant.  This was irrelevant. 

It was all irrelevant.

A short whistle sounded somewhere outside.  Distant.  His target and the stranger probably either couldn’t hear it or had let it slip into the everyday noise they didn’t listen to anymore.  One of the factories, marking the time.  Down by the docks, most likely, where the air smelled like brine and oil and the only thing louder than the flocks of birds circling for scraps was the ship horns that rent the air, warning of their approach.  It was almost time.  The game would end soon.  Mr. O’Rourke would turn off his radio.  Would care more about out of place sounds. 

It was time.

“I’m just an artist.  Comics, mostly.  Nothing—nothing political or—anything someone would want to—involve you over,” the target continued in halting, air-filled words that seemed to bubble out of his thin chest.  The stranger still had his hand on the target’s back, sitting low, just above the base of the spine, but his eyes were on the Soldier.  That one was going to be a problem.  Loud.  Maybe messy.  “I don’t do anything that would—Look, you got the wrong guy. I just—I’m no one—I do a little ink work on a couple of comics.  Some coloring.  That’s it.  You got the wrong guy, I’m telling you.  I—I do odd jobs, pick up a bit of work where I can, I paint.  Or, I did, until you made me bust my new set. Not that that’s, I mean—I don’t _have_ anything.  Nothing that would—nothing that would concern your boss or--”

“Steve,” the stranger said.  Just a name, but it carried a warning there. Even the Soldier could hear it.

“I know, but…this…this doesn’t make sense,” the target replied.  His voice was shaking, the words rattling around in his chest like sparrows against a metal cage.  “It just…none of this makes any sense, Buck.”

_Just…promise me, okay?_

_None of this makes any sense, Buck._

The words dropped into his head the way a raindrop broke the surface of a lake.  Seemingly out of nowhere, only to hit the calm waters and send ripples all the way to the shore.  The Soldier reeled back on his heels, off-balance for a moment.  He blinked. Slowly. One, two.  Waited.  Nothing else followed. 

“I know it doesn’t,” the stranger said, mouth twisting into a grimace around the words.  He was watching the Soldier again.  His eyes were wide. Dilated.  His breath was coming faster.  Not panting, but faster, deeper.  Fear would do that. 

When it happened, it was fast.  Faster than the Soldier would have expected.  There were physical reactions to fear. The Soldier knew them.  Those same responses signaled something else, too.  The stranger lunged at him, aiming for the Soldier’s legs, trying to knock him off balance.  It didn’t work, of course.  He grabbed the man, spun him around and got his arm under the stranger’s throat, using the man’s own struggles to press down and close off the airway.  The stranger’s legs were kicking out, flailing across the floor.  One foot hit one of the paint trays, sending it spinning.   The man was trying to kick the table.  Knock over a chair.  Be loud.  The Soldier, turned them both, twisting away from the table and clamped down, watching the man’s eyes go wide, then still, unfocused. The target came at him then, going for the arm around the stranger’s throat.  Trying to help.  A punch to the gut sent him to his knees.

That was when he felt it.  The sharp, biting pain in his leg.  He looked down, almost incredulously. 

Target: Rogers, Steve Grant.  Father:  Rogers, Joseph. Soldier, World War I. Deceased.  Mother:  Rogers, Sarah.  Nurse. Deceased.

Nurse.

The kitchen drawer.

The kitchen drawer. Where the knives stay.

The mooks behind the St. George.  Remember that?

I remember.

The Soldier released his grip on the stranger and let him slide to the floor, gasping and choking for air.  The target half rolled, half crawled to grab him, one hand clutching at his stomach where he had taken the blow.  He was breathing just fine, the Soldier noticed.  He looked down at the hilt of the knife sticking out of his leg.  Deep.  He could feel it, deep down in the meat of his thigh.  The thin, cotton pant they had him wear to this place offered little protection.  A dark, red spot was growing on the fabric, just above his knee, spreading down.  He could feel it, slick against his skin. 

The stranger was up on one knee now, propping himself with a hand on the target’s shoulder.   The Soldier watched the stranger’s eyes dart over to the chair, the table, the metal box the paints—the damn _paints_ \--had come in.  Looking for something.  A weapon.  Maybe something loud.  The target looked up at the Soldier, then, with a very deliberate gaze on the Soldier, picked up the metal paint box and started banging it on the floor.

Below them, a cheer went up from the crowd with a low, staticky sound, and then the wireless clicked off.

The paints were irrelevant.  The stranger was irrelevant.  The knife was irrelevant.  All that mattered was the mission. 

The Soldier reached down and pulled the knife out with a jerk, flipping it around through his fingers so the grip was right.  A gush of blood flowed out, followed by a searing pain that somehow felt cold.  He ignored it.  The pain was irrelevant. 

The stranger huffed up, pushing himself to a stand and the target went with him, like they were attached by strings.   The Soldier moved, fast.  He could do that, even with his leg compromised, even as he felt his heart pumping, thudding, sending more and more blood out, faster and faster.  He thought he might be dying, but he still moved.  He could complete the mission. 

The stranger moved, too.  Forward, towards him, pushing the target out of the way until his back hit the wall.  The Solider raised the knife.  No collateral damage.

Mission report.

The target had a knife.  I was compromised. 

His handler would laugh.  Then they would fix him.  He would be blank again.  The paints would be irrelevant. 

“Bucky, stop! No!” the target shouted, grabbing frantically for the stranger, as if he could pull him back, out of the way. 

The Soldier stopped. 

He didn’t mean to stop.  But, he did.  He stopped.  Looked down at the paints.  They were smeared all over the floorboards now, in some strange, beautiful painting.  He thought some of it might be his blood.

Thick, dull bangs thudded on the floor, startling him.  The small trays jumped and bounced in time, almost as if in a little dance.  A cane.  Knocking into the ceiling.  He didn’t know how he knew that, but he _knew_.

The Solider crashed his knees and looked at the two men. The target was gripping the stranger’s jacket sleeve, pulling at him.  The stranger balled his fist up and sent it flying towards the Soldier.  He meant to raise his arm. Block the blow.  He didn’t.  It connected with his jaw.  There was a bright burst of pain, then more, deeper, duller behind it.  Beneath the mask, he tasted blood. 

They were gone. The target and the stranger.  He heard the bang of the door as they tore it open.  There was shouting.  It was loud.  He leaned forward and braced a hand on the floor, fingers digging into the paint.  Blue, he thought.  A dark, deep blue, that could paint the sky or the ocean, though he somehow knew that wasn’t what it was used for. 

He knew should put pressure on the wound, but the thought was empty, without any kind of force behind it.  His arm gave out, and he was laying on the floor.  Something was pounding beneath him.  There was a cheer.  The Dodgers pulled it out.  Homer in the ninth.  Lavagetto, with the bases loaded.  He reached up and pushed the goggles off his face, twisting his head to the side.   Looked at his hands.  Blue streaks of paint coated them.  Blue.  Blue that could paint the sky or the ocean.  Or eyes.  Blue that could paint eyes.  Dark and deep and blue, so very, very blue.

_Hey! Those were new!  What’s wrong with you?_

_You stay away from him, you hear me, Stevie?  You get rid of those.  Don’t you take nothing else from him, got it?  Nothing. Not a God-damned thing. I don’t care what those dumb Doras down at St. Ann’s say._

_None of this makes any sense, Buck.  You used to get stuff from him all the time._

_Yeah, and I’m telling you to stay away, okay?  You stay away from him.  I mean it, Steve.  Just…promise me, okay?  You promise me.  You promise me, Steve._

It wasn’t blue. 

It was green.  It was green, green like the grass, like the--

It was bright when he woke.  Too bright.  The lights above the table were giant, glowing orbs, blotting out his vision.  Restraints held his arms and legs, but he could turn his head. His handler was there, standing next to the operating table. 

“Well, he’s not dead,” his handler said, turning his head slightly to look over his shoulder at someone standing out of view.  “Which is about the only good thing I can say about this mission.  I did warn you that this was a bad idea.”

“You did,” a voice said.  American.  Male. Midwestern. Older.  “It was worth a try.” A slight rustle of fabric.  A shrug, perhaps.

“It could have destroyed everything we have worked so hard to build,” his handler said through his teeth. 

“Or, it could have solved a lot of problems.  Hey, look, after what we went through to get our hands on that monk and his fancy neckwear, you think we weren’t going to try it out?” the voice scoffed.  “Besides, you said he’d been tested on this.”

“Not with…not on _this_ ,” his handler objected, turning towards the voice.   “You should’ve sent one of the others.” There was sweat, just a few beads of it, dripping down below his handler’s collar.  He was nervous.  Odd. 

A variation.

The Soldier closed his eyes. 

“Even if he failed, I needed to know. It might be…relevant one day.  Besides.  Could’ve gotten lucky,” the voice said.  Closer now.  Warmer. Smoother, somehow, like he was sharing a joke.  The Soldier opened his eyes.  Looked up.  Reddish blonde hair waved over blue eyes in a lightly lined face that still managed handsome.  “You had a chance to shape the century, Soldier.  You could have saved countless lives.  But, you failed.  Why?”

I don’t know.  I don’t know.  I don’t.  There were paints.  They were wrong.  The paints were wrong, but he used the flesh colored ones the most and Mr. O’Rourke would hear and Devil’s Piss is more like it, damn this stuff tastes terrible, Buck.  The Soldier blinked. The lights were too bright.  He thought he might be shaking.  The room kept getting dim, then brighter, over and over.  His ears were ringing, an insistent, tinny noise that wouldn’t stop. 

The details.  His handler would want (to take) the details.  He would laugh, the low kind that wasn’t really a laugh.  He would need the details.  They were important.  His handler liked the details.

The details were irrelevant.

_We have to be quiet, Stevie. Quiet, or he’ll hear._

_I can be quiet._

 “Mission report, Soldier,” his handler said, leaning slightly over him, his tone short and clipped.  “Why did you fail to kill your target?”

“He told me to stop,” the Soldier said.

“He told you to stop?” his handler scoffed.  “And you just did?  You stopped?  You, the Winter Soldier!  Is that what we do?  We stop our mission when our target asks us?  Is that how we handle things, Soldier?”

“No,” the Soldier said.  “But, I knew him.”

**Author's Note:**

> *waves* So, um, hi. If you read this, thanks. I don't usually write Stucky, and this has given me newfound respect for people who write in multiple ships. I do love both of these characters and their relationship very much, so it was fun to try to challenge myself. I'm going to scurry off now, though, I think and get back to my comfort zone, but thank you so much for letting me come play in your sandbox for a bit.
> 
> Chiaroscuro means the treatment of light and shade in drawing and painting; an effect of contrasted light and shadow created by light falling unevenly or from a particular direction on something. I thought it captured the whole idea of Bucky and the Winter Soldier pretty well. Also, paints, so.


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